“I Want to Come to the U.S. to Rest”: The Chen Dilemma

As if the case of Chen Guangcheng did not have enough firsts—the first blind self-trained country lawyer to escape house arrest and seek refuge at the American embassy in Beijing—Chen, on Thursday, added one more surreal twist: From his hospital bed, he telephoned a Capitol Hill hearing dedicated to the subject of his own fate, and stated his case as if he were standing at the counsel’s table, addressing the bench. He asked to see Hillary Clinton, who is in Beijing for strategic and economic talks, and said,

I want to come to the U.S. to rest. I have not had a rest in ten years. I’m concerned most right now with the safety of my mother and brothers. I really want to know what’s going on with them.

It was a clarifying moment for all sides. For American officials, it officially killed a deal that had turned out to be made of spun glass. In the forty-eight hours since Chen had exited the American embassy he had found himself at the center of a dispiriting diplomatic mess.

U.S. officials initially announced Chen’s departure from the embassy with fanfare: China, they said, had agreed to help reunite Chen with his wife and children and relocate them elsewhere in China, to somewhere Chen could study law, away from the local government in Shandong Province, which had brutalized them for years. But within hours, Chen was publicly questioning the pledges made by the Chinese government, and asking for American help in fleeing the country. It was a painful sight: a blind man with a broken leg, alone in a hospital room in the pre-dawn hours, asking American reporters for help reaching members of Congress.

Smelling blood, Mitt Romney, at a campaign stop in Portsmouth, Virginia, said Thursday that the Obama Administration’s handling of Chen’s case appeared to be “a dark day for freedom. And it’s a day of shame for the Obama administration.” Even as those words escaped his lips, Romney seemed to sense that he was preening on shifting ground: In four sentences about “the reports” from Beijing that the Administration had ushered Chen prematurely out the door of the embassy, the candidate inserted some version of “if they’re accurate” no fewer than four times, though he nonetheless saw fit to indict the administration’s handling of the episode. If the Governor has an alternative vision for how diplomats might have better handled such an unprecedented case, he has yet to grace us with it.

It is not remotely over, but there is no longer a debate about what Chen wants. It is fitting that a man who has never been comfortable in the passive tense took the matter into his own hands. Though the case could do another back flip, on Friday morning it had edged toward a compromise that would allow Chen and his family to leave China for a period of time, though probably short of formal resettlement and asylum. Chinese authorities signalled that they were willing to allow Chen and his family to study abroad. He has an offer from New York University.

But there are several critical steps between now and then that require people to keep close watch. For one, Chen’s family needs passports, and it’s not clear how long the “relevant departments” will take to process them. For another, they will need to be protected from Shandong authorities if they go home to gather their belongings. And, perhaps most vexing of all, they have relatives—nephew, mother, and others— and helpers who will not be going to New York, and it’s incumbent on the China-watching world to keep an eye on them, in the event that embarrassed locals get the idea to retaliate. Chen Guangcheng may land in New York, but making sure he gets there will demand sustained American attention. For the moment, though, there is reason to be optimistic.

The United States will not be able to get Chen and his family on an airplane without Chinese approval; embassies have some sovereignty, but airport highways do not. That means the best option may be one that allows Chinese officials to save face, by pretending that Chen is going abroad to study and seek medical attention.

In other words, Chen’s fate is still in the hands of the Chinese authorities—and, indeed, that is a more accurate reflection of his predicament. Chen Guangcheng’s desperation is a reflection of a fundamental weakness in the Chinese system: its inability to accommodate those who challenge local authority. In fleeing to the American embassy, Chen paid the United States a high compliment, but he did not alter the world that exists outside the compound walls, and it will be that system that ultimately decides if his family will be able to live safely, under the law. In the Christian Science Monitor, former State Department official Nicholas Burns writes:

One thing is certain. No matter how this drama ends, it has exposed for all the world to see China’s Achilles heel as an emerging superpower. Its denial of basic rights and the brutal repression of its people will discredit the communist regime in every corner of the world and may very well be its ultimate undoing.

From a strategic perspective, it’s tempting to see this as good news for the United States: America’s largest strategic rival is incapable of absorbing the criticism of a lone peasant lawyer. But viewed another way, for Clinton and Timothy Geithner, who are seeking to win Chinese coöperation on a range of complex issues, including Iran, North Korea, and Syria, it should be disconcerting: If Chinese leaders cannot act rationally in dealing with the case of Chen Guangcheng, how much can we expect on the truly hard questions?

Photograph: Congressman Chris Smith and Bob Fu, president of ChinaAid, listen to Chinese human-rights lawyer Chen Guangcheng on the phone during a hearing. Alex Wong/Getty.

Evan Osnos joined The New Yorker as a staff writer in 2008, and covers politics and foreign affairs.